No Relation

by Terry Fallis

  I didn’t really know what more we could do, other than observe and take note of anything that seemed noteworthy. They both ordered drinks and food. Mystery man had a pizza while Henderson had what looked like a Caesar salad, but it could have been the Niçoise salad. We just weren’t close enough to be sure. They were having quite an animated conversation. In a flash of brilliance, or it might just have been the glare of the obvious, I pulled out my cellphone and snapped a couple of photos, assisted by its built-in digital zoom. I confirmed the Caesar salad. We just sat there and watched until dessert and coffee were delivered to Henderson and his lunch partner.

  “I must say I’m getting a little peckish watching the two of them enjoy what looks to be a very nice meal indeed,” Hat said.

  “Me too. I just wish we could hear what they’re saying to each other.” I sighed.

  “What? You want to hear their conversation?” Hat asked. “Why have you waited until now to make that point clear?”

  Without waiting for a response from me, he squeezed between the two front seats and into the back of the van. I continued to watch the lunch meeting while Hat created quite the ruckus behind me digging through the equipment.

  “Hem, would you please be so kind as to start the van up?” Hat asked from the back. “I’ll be needing to plug in back here.”

  I did as I was told and then turned around. Hat was holding a parabolic dish in his hands.

  “Mario, would you mind terribly plugging that cord into the outlet you’ll find at the base of the door jamb, there. Right there.”

  Mario did as he was told.

  “Now, Hem, is your smartphone equipped with an audio recording app?”

  “As a matter of fact, it is. I use it for dictating story ideas that occur to me when I’m not near my laptop. At least I used to do that when I used to have ideas for my novel.”

  “Excellent. Will this input jack fit into your phone?”

  He handed me a small-gauge wire that originated in the black box on the backside of the parabolic dish. The jack fit perfectly when I inserted it into the port in my phone.

  “Now, open the recording app and hit the big red button to start recording, if you kindly would.”

  “Okay, I’ve done that, and – look – it’s picking up our conversation! I can see the sound waves jumping on the screen in time with our voices.”

  “That is just splendid news, Hem, splendid news,” Hat said in a tone tinged with triumph. “Then we are definitely ready. Mario, slide open the door if you would.”

  Mario did as he was told.

  “Actually, Mario, could I suggest you open the other door, you know, the one facing the restaurant,” Hat proposed.

  Mario closed the door on the sidewalk side and then opened the one on the other side of the van, giving Hat a clear line of sight across the street and up the block a ways, directly to Henderson Watt’s outdoor table. Hat sat on the floor, scooched over toward the gaping rectangular opening in the side of the van, and aimed the dish toward our quarry. Cars were whizzing by beside the van’s open door.

  “Mario, you’ll need to lie here and hold the door open so it doesn’t slide shut.”

  I was a little concerned that aiming a rather conspicuous parabolic dish toward unsuspecting patrons enjoying lunch on an outdoor patio might seem just a tad suspicious. But I kept that thought to myself.

  Hat was wearing headphones and kept shifting the dish, trying to get a line on Henderson’s conversation. At one point he slid a little too far out the door and a car honked and nearly took out the dish and Hat, too. He pulled back inside the van.

  “Damnation! I’m starting to feel steamed!” Hat snapped.

  “Whoaaa, Hat, it’s okay, calm down,” I soothed as I patted his leg from my perch up front.

  “Thank you, Hem, but I will need your services back here, if you please.”

  I crawled back so that all three of us were crammed into what little space there was behind the two seats.

  “I believe I can get a better angle if I’m kneeling rather than sitting, but I’ll need you to steady me and keep me from falling over. The dish gets heavier the longer you hold it. Could you do that for me, Hem?”

  “I’m your man.”

  I straddled him from behind. Hmm, that didn’t come out quite as I had intended. I sat behind Hat with a leg on either side of him as if we were riding a toboggan together or perhaps a motorcycle. Yes, that’s a little better.

  “Okay, Hem, you must push me up now so I can get to my knees.”

  I did my best to hoist him up. Then when he was on his knees, I grabbed his belt to keep him steady while he aimed the dish again.

  “I can only get little snippets from this distance. We must get closer. The cars are interfering and we’re just a bit out of range,” Hat said. “And that delivery truck parked in front is in no way helping, either.”

  At that precise moment, I noticed through the front windshield that one of the cars parked up ahead, nearly directly across from Henderson’s table, was pulling out into traffic. No, check that, two cars were pulling out, one in front of the other. Hat saw the double parking spot opening up and looked at me. We were both stuck where we were and had only limited range of motion. I sighed.

  “We have no choice,” I whispered to Hat. He nodded.

  “Okay, Mario, your moment is now,” I said.

  “What?” he replied. “What do you mean?”

  “This is important and you need to move fast. Get in the driver’s seat and move the van up to the parking spot that is just opening up ahead. You can drive right into it. It’s a double spot. No parallel parking required. But you have to do it now,” I said with some urgency. “Or we’ll lose it.”

  “I don’t know, guys,” Mario stammered.

  “Right now!” Hat shouted. “You must do it right now!”

  Mario was startled, or perhaps terrified, by Hat’s outburst, and leapt into the driver’s seat. He turned the key in the ignition, making the most hideous metal-on-metal shriek imaginable.

  “Mario, the van is already started, just put it into Drive and get into that spot before someone else does.”

  As Mario sat there adjusting his seat and mirrors, Hat lost it.

  “Forget the blasted mirrors! We’re only driving seventy-five feet! Go! Go! Go!”

  Mario threw it into Drive and pulled into the lane. A miracle blessed us with an opening in the traffic and we moved up the street. A red Porsche had pulled up ahead of the double parking spot and was about to back into it when Mario darted in frontward, jumping the curb and screeching to a halt with two wheels on the sidewalk and two wheels on the road. Oh yes, he also knocked over a green wire garbage can, spilling its contents all over the ground. As Mario hit the brakes – and believe me, I’m grateful he did – the open door slid shut with a bang, nearly decapitating Hat. We were thrown around the back of the van and landed in a heap on the floor.

  The driver of the Porsche was not happy and had gotten out of his car. Mario was paralyzed in the front seat. Hat saw the guy coming, so he threw open the door and bounded out to intercept him. Hat must have put on his most menacing look, to which I’ve grown accustomed, because without saying a word, Mr. Porsche turned on his heel, zipped back to his little red sports car, and squealed away.

  The eyes of everyone on the restaurant’s patio were fixed on our van, including those of Henderson Watt and his co-conspirator. Fortunately, I was buried in the back in a mess of wires, cables, and electronic equipment, far from prying eyes. We reassembled in the van and stayed quiet for a few minutes until Mario reported that life and lunch had returned to normal across the street. Then Hat slid the door open again and, as discreetly as possible, once again aimed a three-foot-diameter parabolic dish at the patio patrons across the street. I hid behind Hat, though my legs and shoes would have been clearly visible from the restaurant.

  I snuck a peek around Hat’s hip and saw that Henderson and the other guy were both standing and shaking ha
nds. It was all but over. They walked out onto the sidewalk and got into separate cabs, both going the same way, which was exactly the opposite direction the van was facing. They were gone.

  Hat sat back down, on top of me.

  “Sorry, Hem.”

  I pressed the button on my phone to stop the recording.

  “Hem, I think I got just the tail end of their conversation. Did you get it?”

  “Well, it was recording the whole time, so we got whatever you heard.”

  Mario was still sitting in the driver’s seat with his white knuckles gripping the steering wheel. Or it’s possible he was trying to pull the steering wheel right out of the dashboard. It took us another ten minutes to calm him down.

  I called Sarah when I made it back to my apartment.

  “Okay, mission accomplished, with mixed results,” I started my report.

  “Well, which is it? Was the mission accomplished or were there mixed results? You can’t really do both.”

  “It’s always nice to start a conversation with hairsplitting. When I say mission accomplished, I meant that we actually managed to intercept Henderson, follow him to a restaurant, photograph the guy he met with, and even record an all-too-brief snippet of their conversation.”

  “That sounds pretty good to me. Sounds like Q set you up with a bug for the table,” she replied. “So why do you call those impressive results mixed?”

  “Well, it turned out we probably could have recorded their entire conversation had I thought to raise it sooner. My friend Hat is a whiz with a parabolic receiver.”

  “Okay, cut to the chase.”

  “Henderson met with a sharp-dressed man in his forties who looked a little familiar to me but I don’t know where or even if I’ve seen him before. I’ve just emailed you his photo and the short MP3 recording of their parting words.”

  “What were those parting words?” she asked.

  “It starts with Henderson in mid-sentence. He says: ‘… almost taste it.’ Then the other guy responds with ‘Me, too. Hang in there. We’re just about home. Just keep doing what you’re doing.’ ”

  “Interesting and very suspicious,” Sarah said.

  “I assume Henderson went directly back to the airport, but I’m not certain. We just couldn’t get our act together to tail his cab after the meeting.”

  “He must be on his way back. I’m told he’s due back in some big meeting with Dad at 5:30.”

  I didn’t even try to write that afternoon, even though I had the time. If nothing had changed with my father, nothing would change with my novel. As Madelaine had said, finally knowing the root cause of my travails usually doesn’t resolve them. It just makes it easier to chart a course toward resolution.

  So instead of not writing, I met with my mechanic and picked up the G35. The new brakes were a bit touchy, as he had warned, turning the Stop signs into STOP signs. I made it home safely.

  Sarah called again at 11:30 the next morning. “Come today, now,” she said in a very tight voice. “Come as soon as you can.”

  One of the benefits of living in New York is that if you ever need to fly to Chicago on very short notice, there’s a flight bound for O’Hare every twenty minutes or so. An hour and twenty-five minutes after her call, my seat belt was fastened for takeoff.

  “Good, you’re here,” Sarah said when I stuck my head in her office.

  She stood up, grabbed my arm, and propelled me down the corridor.

  “Okay, so I was thinking we could strategize a bit on our approach,” I said as we walked, fast. “Then we could pull Dad aside tonight at the house when it’s quiet and really get to the bottom of this.”

  Sarah said nothing, until she, or rather we, barrelled right past my father’s secretary, Irene, and headed directly for his closed office door.

  “Ms. Hemmingway, I’m afraid he’s in the middle of a big meeting right now,” Irene said from her desk, standing up as she spoke.

  Sarah seemed not to have heard her.

  “Um, Sarah,” I said.

  “Ms. Hemmingway, now is not a good time …”

  Sarah, or rather we, didn’t even slow down. She, we, threw open the door and barged into our father’s office and slammed the door behind her, er, us.

  “Okay, just what the hell is going on?” Sarah snapped. “And don’t tell me ‘nothing,’ because it’s all too obvious that something big is happening.”

  Our father was seated at the head of the small board table without his suit jacket on. That was not good news. I’d very rarely seen him without his jacket. He looked pale and not himself. Henderson Watt, his shirt-sleeves rolled up, sat to Dad’s left, with the company lawyer, Michael Kingsley, next to him. The man across the table turned in his chair to face us. I didn’t recognize him.

  “Sarah, please, calm down,” said our father.

  Not a line I would have recommended.

  “I will not calm down when my own father will not return my calls,” she shouted. “I will not calm down. What is going on? I’m not leaving until you tell me!”

  Then she turned on Henderson Watt.

  “And why were you in New York yesterday? What were you doing?”

  Henderson put his pen down on the table very slowly before meeting Sarah’s eyes.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was meeting with an old friend. We sit together on the board of a national charity based in New York and we’re dealing with a very messy HR fiasco involving our executive director. It’s not a pleasant situation and it requires sensitive and discreet management. The phone simply would not suffice. Face to face was required. That’s why I was in NYC.”

  “Oh,” Sarah said.

  Surely we hadn’t misread the whole play.

  “And who are you?” Sarah said to the one stranger in the room.

  “Sarah, please. Show some manners,” our father said.

  “It’s okay,” the stranger said. “I’m Stephen Jacobs, from Paragon Counsel. Nice to meet you.”

  “The M&A firm?”

  Stephen Jacobs just nodded.

  “Dad, what’s going on?”

  “Gentlemen, could I call a brief recess. I clearly need to speak with my family.”

  “I’ve got to get something from my car anyway. Let’s take a break,” Henderson said, pushing his chair back and gathering his papers. “But we don’t have a lot of time, EH3.”

  “Just give us fifteen minutes, and then come back in,” my father said.

  Kingsley and Jacobs stood, closed their notebooks, reloaded their file folders, and piled documents into gigantic briefcases. A moment later, the top of the board table was bare. Then they all left the room, closing the door behind them without making a sound.

  No one said anything for a few seconds. We just stood there looking at Dad. He was looking at his hands clasped in front of him.

  “Sit down, please,” he said.

  Sarah and I sat next to each other on the near side of the board table.

  “I’m sorry you’re hearing about this in this manner. I intended to talk to you both this evening. But your rather dramatic entrance has overtaken my plans.”

  He paused for a moment before continuing. He was looking at me when he spoke.

  “I have signed a letter of intent to sell the company to – ”

  “Not to MaxWorldCorp!” Sarah interrupted.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, we’re not that desperate. You know I’d never sell to Buccaneer Gainsford. That will never happen. Preston Holdings is, as the name suggests, a holding company. They seem to know what they’re doing in the clothing trade. They’ve made us a very generous offer that’s well above Hemmingwear’s current market valuation. In the end, it was an easy call, after Earnest, here, refused to assume his rightful place at the helm and ended nearly a century of family ownership and management of this place. This keeps the company out of Gainsford’s megalomaniacal hands and gives it a fighting chance. It was the responsible decision to make under the circumstances.” />
  Ouch. That stung a bit. But even then, I did not question my decision. In fact, I was feeling something almost akin to relief at Dad’s news. Sarah started to say something, but Dad held up his hand to silence her.

  “Preston is largely based in Europe, and they were looking for a beachhead in the North American market. Hemmingwear is it. This is the right time. This is the right buyer. And this is the right price. The deal is done.”

  He lowered his hand.

  “No, you can’t do that,” Sarah said. “We have the ability to lead the market if we just make a few changes around here. We can do it. I know we can.”

  “Sarah, MaxWorldCorp is slowly crushing us. We’re the frog sitting happily in water that’s about to boil. Open your eyes. Every time we make a move, they anticipate it and undercut us. They’re heavily capitalized and can simply starve us out of business unless we act. They are going to take us out, one way or another, unless we make this deal.”

  “Dad, no, you’re wrong. I’m sorry, you’re just wrong,” Sarah persisted. “We have a viable plan to use our own strengths to compete with them, to defeat them. You just have to push the button on the plan.”

  “If you’re referring to your plan, it won’t work. It won’t help us,” Dad replied. “In fact, Henderson has been over it in some detail and believes that it will substantially weaken us at a time when that would simply guarantee our demise. This deal will keep the Hemmingwear brand strong in the marketplace.”

  “Exactly how will the plan weaken us? Tell me how, precisely!” Sarah snapped.

  Our father, well, he hesitated a little too long.

  “You haven’t even read it, have you?” she said. “I guess I’m not surprised. Don’t listen to Henderson Watt. He’s a jackass who’s not nearly as smart as you think, and nowhere near as smart as he thinks.”

  “There was a time when you thought quite highly of Henderson Watt,” he said. “You brought him to the company, wanted me to hire him.”

  “And I regret it profoundly.”

  “Henderson Watt has given me outstanding counsel from the day he arrived here. We are a better company for his intelligence and dedication. We’d be in deep trouble without his support. I’m thankful you introduced him to me. I think, perhaps, that personal feelings you may have for him are clouding your judgment.”